6 Best freshwater aquatic plants care
Elodea Canadian
Freshwater Aquatic plants – perennial or annual plants, a necessary condition of life which – stay in the fresh, salty or brackish water.
Some of them are the most numerous group, consisting mainly of monocotyledons, immersed in the water in whole or in part by their own part, all forms that die outside the water and are incapable of land life. They keep on insignificant depths of fresh and salt waters or float on a surface.
Others are submerged in the water only by the lower part, experience a temporary drought or require that only their roots be moistened abundantly; These are shallow, coastal and marsh forms.
To freshwater aquatic plants, it is also possible to include algae – an extensive group of organisms, which previously belonged to plants.
In habitation in the freshwater aquatic plants environment has determined the special features of the organization of aquatic plants: a significant increase in the body surface in comparison with its mass, which facilitates the absorption of the necessary quantities of oxygen and other gasses that are less in water than in air. The increase in the surface of the plant is achieved by the development of large thin leaves, for example – pondy, the dismemberment of the leaf blade into thin threadlike areas, for example, urot, hornfels, water cups, the strong development of air cavities and large inter-cellular spaces.
The root system of aquatic plants is poorly developed, root hairs are absent: water with mineral substances dissolved in it can penetrate directly into the leaves. The high density of the aquatic environment causes a weak development of mechanical elements in the leaves and stems of freshwater aquarium plants. The few mechanical elements in the stems are located closer to the center, which gives them greater flexibility. Roots are pinnate: plants do not need support in the water.
Javanese moss
In the flora of the USSR, there are more. 260 species of flowering aquatic plants, mainly monocots. Seeds and fruits are spread by birds or water currents. Among the there are useful: edible seeds of water nuts, rhizomes of the gander, grains of manna grass, etc. Seeds and fruits of many aquatic plants serve as food for some birds; And dead animals often feed on invertebrates, serving as food to fish.
One of the leading food crops in the world – rice is a water cereal. North American Indians also used to eat a grain of Canadian rice belonging to another kind of cereal, which is now sold as a delicacy, usually served with game.
As spicy greens, a medicinal herb is also used, growing in cold streams and along their shores. Especially many aquatic plants know Chinese cooking. Among them – starch-rich tubers of the strelolist and bogs, horned fruits of a water-nut, the rhizome of a lotus, etc. Some tribes consume pollen and starchy rhizomes.
Vallisneria spiral
Different kinds of the pond – a perfect food for waterfowl. Tubers and seeds of these plants are fed, for example, ducks. Other valuable feeds for birds include cane and Canadian rice. Moose eat leaves of water lilies and other aquatic plants, and beavers – their fleshy rhizomes. Rich starch rhizome rhizomes and Serologist tubers serve as food for the muskrat. Good roughage for cattle is given by shoots of Sitnikov, sedge, etc.
Freshwater Aquatic plants play a role in the self-purification of pools, although sometimes such as for example elodea, and themselves can be harmful if they grow in water bodies and especially in reservoirs. To prevent rapid and undesirable propagation, thickets are mowed out with special water mowers. Sloping plants are sometimes used to feed cattle. Many of them are bred in domestic aquariums.
Sometimes for the purification of canals and other water bodies plant herbivorous fish species, such as white cupid and white carp. Herbicides are also used for the destruction of aquatic plants. For plants serving as fodder for fish, special agricultural technology has been developed.
Cryptocorin is an aponogetonoletic
The chemical composition of water. According to the requirements for the chemical composition of water, four groups of aquatic plants can be distinguished: 1) species growing in soft, neutral or slightly acidic waters, common in areas where there is little limestone; 2) fresh water species rich in calcium carbonate; 3) types of desalinated marine and alkaline (sulfate-rich) waters of arid regions; 4) marine species. Some widespread aquatic plants grow well with a different chemical composition of water, others – only with a strictly defined. For example, Phyllospadix is found only in seawater, Ruppia – only in brackish or alkaline, many pondies prefer water rich in lime, and most half-pockets, or shilnik, grow only in soft marsh water.
Nutrient requirements
Free-floating plants, such as duckweed and water ferns, receive the necessary salt for nutrition directly from water, but most aquatic plants, at least in part, extract them from the bottom soil and best develop on a fertile, organic substrate. On poor soils, such as sand, the growth of many species is suppressed, and some aquatic plants remain in the juvenile stage under these conditions, which is often used by aquarists. For normal development, aquatic plants need adequate lighting.
Mosses develop intensively in stagnant waters, forming moss bogs. In North America, only about 20 species of freshwater aquarium plants belong to leaf-stalk mosses and a group of liverworts close to them. The most famous of them is the moss fontanels, often found on flooded trees in transparent streams. It’s soft upright stems are covered with many small and thin triangular leaves. Sometimes it is bred in aquariums, especially if you want to stimulate the reproduction of fish. In moss, Drepanocladus shoots are creeping, brownish. It grows in the shallows under reeds and sedge. Its small leaves are crooked at the ends of the stems. Of liverworts in standing water bodies, water riccia is common, growing in the form of an intricate mass of green forked branching threads.
Anubias
The inhabitants of the waters among these freshwater aquatic plants, multiplying not by seeds but by spores, are represented by various life forms. Small ferns of azole and salvinia freely float on the surface of standing water bodies. In the first genus, the leaves are in the form of overlapping scales, while in the second, they are elliptical, non-overlapping and pubescent with hard hairs. Sometimes azolla grows over the entire surface of the ponds, in the fall its shoots turn red. Salvinia comes from the warm regions of the planet, and some of its species introduced into the United States, clog the reservoirs. This fern is often bred in domestic aquariums and ornamental pools.
The half-schnitzel or the seamstress looks uncharacteristic, turfy, a sedge-like plant. It develops underwater on a coarse-grained substrate in lakes with sandy, stony or rocky bottom, sometimes forming whole underwater meadows. The poluschnik is close to the trees of the genus Sigillaria, which grew on the swamps in the Carboniferous period. Like them, his spores develop in the pits at the base of the leaves. The horsetail of the river is also a plant close to ferns with an ancient pedigree. He has tubular stems with branches of whorls from the knots. At the top of the stem ripens brown, like a bump of spikelets with spores.
Uvirandra
Many freshwater aquatic plants, especially small ones, are grown in domestic aquariums to decorate and enrich the water with oxygen. In warmed-up water, plants of warm latitudes, in particular Elodea , some species of Echinodorus from South America, cryptocoryns from tropical Asia, various aponogetones from Madagascar, from Africa and tropical Asia, and species of vallisneria from Southern Europe are well behaved . From North American aquatic plants in aquariums are often planted egg capsules, arrowhead, hornwort, Elodie Canadian, cabbage , marsh, pit, duckweed and pemphigus . For the successful growth of all these plants requires enough light – sunny or artificial. However, too much lighting is fraught with the rapid development of algae.
There are some more freshwater aquatic plants description
Some freshwater aquatic plants perfectly adorn ponds and ornamental pools . Often, water lilies of different colors and sizes, lotus, urot, elodeyu, papyrus and water hyacinth are used for this. Their growth is best promoted by fertile bottom soil.
Water lily
The water-lily is the queen among the aquatic vegetation. It is represented by a variety of species and hybrid forms, among which are winter-hardy and not winter-hardy. The first can winter at a depth below the freezing level, the latter require winter storage.
Kubyshka
Kubyshka – in the family of jugs, this genus is the most numerous after the lids themselves. In addition to the yellow and small egg capsules inherent in the Russian nature, we can grow some North American and Japanese species, which are rare in culture.
Lotus
Lotus – a magnificent exotic plant, the distribution of which in culture is limited to its thermophilic temper. The most successful can be grown only in the south of the country.
Pistia
Pistia – genus includes only one species of plants, in appearance resembling floating cabbage lettuce. In places of natural growth, pistil can reach large sizes, unattainable in our climate. In winter, requires an aquarium.
Rdest
Rdest is a numerous genus of aquatic plants, represented both by floating and submerged species. Several species originating from temperate latitudes and easily tolerating winter are of interest as ornamental plants for breeding in garden water bodies.
Hornwort
Hornwort is only and a few genus of the Rogolistnikov family. Completely immersed plants without roots, with inconspicuous flowers, adapted to life exclusively in the water column.
Rogulnik
Rogulnik is the only family of the Rogulnik family, on the territory of Russia represented by one species – the flyer floating. Valuable in the decorative and economic plan is a plant that is quite rare both in nature and in culture.
Eichornia
Eichornia – exotic plants used in aquarium culture and garden water in summer. Can lead a floating or attached way of life. For flowering require a sufficient amount of heat.
Braces are a rare plant from a small and interesting family of cabombs, more known to aquarists because of the prevalence of another representative – kabomba. The genus of a skin is very isolated in the evolutionary plan and is represented by only one species.
